There has been a lighting control device which decides the presence or absence of a person in a lighting area which is lighted by the light source of the plurality of lighting apparatuses, and controls flashing and dimming of the lighting apparatuses depending on the decision result thereof. Image data is acquired in a room by an imaging device installed in a ceiling of a living room or the like, and the decision is performed based on the image data acquired by the imaging device.
The detection of the presence or absence of a person using the imaging device is performed, for example, by comparing two or more images imaged at certain time intervals and specifying a changed portion. Furthermore, the control of the flashing or the dimming of the lighting apparatus is, for example, to keep the lighting of the lighting apparatus for a predetermined lighting maintenance time when detecting the presence of a person, and keep a predetermined dark lighting or extinguish the lighting apparatus by gradually reducing light at a predetermined fade time by a dimming control after a lighting maintenance time elapses.
Herein, the lighting maintenance time refers to a time when the presence of a person is detected and then a lighting state of the lighting apparatus is maintained. Accordingly, when the presence of a person is newly detected within the lighting maintenance time, the lighting maintenance time is counted from that time. For that reason, when the presence of a person is continuously detected, the lighting apparatus is continuously lighted. Furthermore, fade refers to gradually changing luminance of the lighting apparatus, and the fade time refers to a time from a normal lighting state of the lighting apparatus to a predetermined dark lighting or the extinguishing. In the related art, the lighting maintenance time or the fade time are uniformly set in the same lighting area.
However, in the same lighting area, when the lighting maintenance time or the fade time is uniformly set, in an area where a person always present and an area where a person is temporarily present, the lighting control using the same lighting maintenance time or the fade time is performed. Such a control is not preferable from the viewpoint of energy conservation.
Thus, although dividing the lighting area into a plurality of division areas and manually setting the lighting maintenance time or the fade time for each division area is considered, when doing so, a lot of time is spent for the setting task.
An object of an exemplary embodiment is to provide a lighting control device and a lighting control method which are able to decide whether each of division areas into which the lighting area is divided is a stay area where a person stays or a non-stay area where a person does not stay, and perform different lighting controls for each determined area.